Unwanted

by Kristina Ohlsson

  Of course the Man would never accept her showing enough independence to leave the flat in her present state. He would come after her, and he would kill her.

  Time, thought Jelena, as she kneeled up, trembling, and gripped the handle of the front door. I’ve got to think.

  She struggled to raise her other hand so she could reach the lock. Unlock the door and open it. She remembered nothing more.

  The door swung open and cold marble met Jelena’s face as she hit the floor.

  Alex Recht began his working day by dispatching Fredrika to Uppsala to question Sara Sebastiansson’s former friend Maria Blomgren, who had been with her on the writing course in Umeå.

  Then he sat behind his desk with a cup of coffee in his hand. Quiet and alone.

  Later on, Alex would wonder just when had this case turned into a wild animal that paralysed his whole team by stubbornly and persistently choosing its own path. The case seemed to be living a life of its own, with the sole purpose of confusing the team and leading it astray.

  Don’t you dare control me, came a whisper inside Alex. Don’t you dare tell me which way to go.

  Alex sat stiffly at his desk. Although the night had only allowed him a few hours’ sleep, he felt full of energy. He also felt pure, livid anger. There was such insolence to the perpetrator’s whole plan. The hair was couriered to the child’s mother. The child was dumped in a car park outside a big hospital. Somebody even rang the hospital to make sure the child would be found. Without leaving a single trace behind them. Or at least nothing personal, like fingerprints.

  ‘But nobody on the planet is invisible, and nobody is infallible, that’s for sure,’ Alex muttered doggedly to himself as he lifted the receiver and dialled the forensics unit in Solna.

  The pathologist who took Alex’s call sounded surprisingly young. In Alex’s world, skilled doctors were usually over fifty, so he always felt slightly anxious when he had to work with someone younger than that.

  Despite his prejudices, he found the pathologist to be a very competent person who expressed himself in terms that even an ordinary police officer could understand.

  That was good enough for Alex.

  The pathologist up in Umeå had been right in her preliminary assessment. Lilian had died of poisoning, an overdose of insulin. The insulin had been injected directly into the body, high at the back of her neck.

  Alex reluctantly found his anger now mixed with surprise.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said the pathologist, sounding concerned. ‘But it’s an effective and – how shall I put it – clinical way of killing someone. And keeps the victim’s suffering to a minimum.’

  ‘Was she conscious when she was jabbed?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ the doctor said doubtfully. ‘I found traces of morphine in her, so presumably someone had tried to keep her calm. But I can’t swear she was unconscious when she was given the lethal injection.’

  He went on:

  ‘It’s hard to say what the murderer hoped to gain by injecting the insulin straight into her skull, or the back of her neck. At that concentration it would have been lethal even if injected into an arm or leg.’

  ‘Do you think he’s a doctor? The murderer?’ Alex asked quietly.

  ‘Hardly,’ said the pathologist tersely. ‘I’d call the way the needle was used amateurish. And as I say: why did he initially try putting it straight in the girl’s head? It almost seems like some kind of symbolic act.’

  Alex wondered at what he had just heard. Symbolic? How?

  The cause of death seemed as bizarre as the rest of the case.

  Had she eaten anything after she was abducted?

  The pathologist took a few moments to answer.

  ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘No, it doesn’t look like it. Her stomach was entirely empty. But if she was kept drugged for a period, that’s not so surprising.’

  ‘Can you tell us anything about where the body’s been?’ Alex asked wearily.

  ‘As they noted in Umeå, the body had been at least partly washed with alcohol. I looked for traces of the perpetrators under her nails, but I didn’t find anything. In a few places I was able to secure the remnants of a particular kind of talc, which shows they wore rubber gloves, the sort they have in hospitals.’

  ‘Can they be got hold of anywhere else?’

  ‘We’ll have to do some more tests before I’m completely sure, but they probably are hospital gloves. And they’re not difficult to get hold of if you know somebody who works at a hospital, but you can’t just buy them at the chemist’s.’

  Alex nodded thoughtfully to himself.

  ‘But if the murderer had access to hypodermic needles and hospital alcohol and gloves . . .’ he began.

  ‘Then it’s likely one of the people involved moves in health service circles,’ the doctor finished for him.

  Alex went quiet. What had the pathologist just said . . . ?

  ‘You always talk about the murderer as if it was more than one person,’ he said enquiringly.

  ‘Yes,’ said the pathologist.

  ‘But what are you basing that on?’ asked Alex.

  ‘I do beg your pardon, I thought you’d been given that information when you were up in Umeå,’ the pathologist apologized.

  ‘What information?’

  ‘The girl’s body is completely undamaged apart from the lesion to the scalp. She hasn’t been subjected to any kind of external bodily harm and nor has she been sexually abused.’

  Alex sighed with relief.

  ‘But,’ the pathologist went on, ‘there are distinct sets of bruises on her arms and legs. They were probably the result of a struggle as someone tried to hold her down. One of the pairs of hands that made them was very small, probably a woman’s. Further up the arms there are also larger bruises, which appear to have been inflicted by much larger hands. Probably a man’s.’

  Alex felt his chest tighten.

  ‘So there are two of them?’ he said. ‘A man and a woman?’

  The pathologist’s hesitation was audible.

  ‘Could be, yes, but I can’t be entirely sure, of course.’

  He went on:

  ‘But I can say that the bruising must have occurred several hours before the child died. Possibly when they were shaving her head.’

  ‘The woman held her down while the man shaved her,’ Alex said softly. ‘And Lilian put up too much of a fight, so they changed places. The woman shaved and the man held her down.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said the pathologist again.

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Alex under his breath.

  By the time Fredrika Bergman got to Uppsala, the picture of the woman who had held up Sara Sebastiansson in Flemingsberg was already all over the media. Fredrika heard it on the radio as she pulled up outside Maria Blomgren’s.

  The police are now looking for a woman who is thought to have been . . .

  Fredrika switched off the engine and got out of the car. The media were now following the Lilian case extremely closely. They didn’t know all the repulsive details yet, but sooner or later they would get their hands on them. And then all hell would break loose, that was for sure.

  It was warmer in Uppsala than in Stockholm. Fredrika remembered she’d always thought so when she was a student as well. It was always a bit hotter in Uppsala in summer, and a bit colder in winter.

  As if you were travelling to an entirely different part of the world.

  Meeting Maria Blomgren soon shook Fredrika out of her reverie. Maria Blomgren looked unmistakably as though she came from exactly the same part of the world as Fredrika herself.

  We even look a bit like each other, thought Fredrika.

  Dark hair, blue eyes. Maria was perhaps a little fuller in the cheeks, a bit taller and slightly darker-skinned. Her hips were broader and more rounded.

  She must have had a baby, thought Fredrika automatically.

  And Maria gave an even more earnest impression than Fredrika, if that
was possible. She did not smile until she had seen Fredrika’s ID. Then she smiled a thin little smile showing not even a glimpse of her teeth.

  But there was not much reason to smile, when it came to it. Alex Recht had called Maria Blomgren in advance to explain what the visit was all about. Maria said she didn’t think she had anything particular to tell them, but of course she would cooperate with the police.

  They sat down at the kitchen table. Sand-coloured walls, white mosaic tiles, modern kitchen units. The table was elliptical in shape, and the chairs were hard and white. Apart from the walls, almost everything in the kitchen was white. The whole flat was pedantically tidy and looked clinically clean.

  So different from Sara Sebastiansson’s, thought Fredrika. It was quite hard to imagine the two women once having been best friends.

  ‘You wanted to ask me about that summer in Umeå?’ Maria said straight out.

  Fredrika delved in her handbag for her notebook and pen. Maria was demonstrating unequivocally that, while not unwilling to talk to the police, she wanted it over and done with as soon as possible.

  ‘Maybe you could start with how you and Sara became friends? How did you get to know each other?’

  Fredrika detected distinct hesitation in Maria’s face. Then scarcely perceptible irritation. Her eyes darkened.

  ‘We were friends in upper secondary,’ said Maria. ‘My parents separated around then and I had to change schools. Sara and I happened to be in the same German group; we were with the same German teacher for three years.’

  Maria fiddled with the vase of beautiful flowers on the table in front of her. It struck Fredrika that she had not been offered so much as a glass of water.

  ‘I don’t really know what sort of things you want me to tell you,’ Maria said slowly. ‘Sara and I soon became close friends. Her parents were going through some sort of crisis just then, too, and arguing a lot. We understood each other, both being in the same boat. We were both typical model pupils, the kind who lend their pens to everybody and don’t like the sort of classmates who disrupt lessons.’

  When Maria raised her eyes, Fredrika saw moisture glinting in them.

  She’s grieving, thought Fredrika. That’s why she’s being so buttoned up. She’s grieving for the relationship she and Sara once had.

  ‘In the last year at secondary school, Sara changed,’ Maria went on. ‘She wanted to rebel. Started wearing make-up, drinking and messing around with boys.’

  Maria shook her head.

  ‘I think she got tired of it. That phase ended pretty quickly, round about the time her parents got back together again. I think they’d separated for a while, but I’m not sure. Anyway, on the whole things were fine again. And then we went on to college and made sure we were on the same course. We’d already decided what we wanted to be: interpreters at the UN.’

  Maria laughed heartily at the thought, and Fredrika smiled.

  ‘You were both good at languages?’

  ‘Yes, oh yes, our German and English teachers couldn’t praise us enough.’

  Maria’s look turned grave again.

  ‘But then Sara had more trouble at home. Her parents changed church and Sara didn’t get on with the new, stricter rules they suddenly expected her to follow.’

  ‘Church?’ Fredrika echoed in surprise.

  Maria raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, church. Sara’s parents were Pentecostalists, and there was nothing odd about that. But then a group of them broke away and started a Swedish branch of an American Free Church movement. They called themselves Christ’s Children, or something like that.’

  Fredrika listened with growing interest.

  ‘And what was the conflict with her parents about?’ she asked.

  ‘Well it was so stupid, really,’ Maria sighed. ‘Her parents had always been quite liberal although they were such believers. They didn’t mind us going out or anything like that. But in the few years they were part of that new group, they changed, got more radical. They were much more restrictive about clothes, music, parties and so on. And Sara couldn’t cope with the change. She refused to take part in anything to do with the church, which her parents accepted even though the pastor tried to force them to be stricter in their parental role. But that wasn’t enough for Sara; she wanted to push the boundaries even more.’

  ‘With more booze and boys?’

  ‘With more booze and boys, and sex,’ sighed Maria. ‘It wasn’t too early for it, really, we must have been seventeen when she got going, so to speak. But it was a bit worrying that she seemed to be trying to go with boys just to annoy her parents.’

  Fredrika found herself crossing her legs under the table. She hadn’t been with a boy until she was well over eighteen.

  ‘Anyway,’ Maria went on, ‘she met a really nice boy the year after that. And I got together with the boy’s best friend, so we were like a little gang, always going round together.’

  ‘How did Sara’s parents take it? Her having a boyfriend, I mean.’

  ‘They didn’t know at first, of course. And when they found out . . . Well, I think they thought it was quite okay. Sara calmed down a bit, and they genuinely had no idea about all the boys she’d been with before that. If they had known, I think it would have been a different story.’

  ‘And what happened?’ asked Fredrika, who was really caught up in the story.

  ‘Then time passed and spring came,’ said Maria, who was a good storyteller and knew when she had a good listener in front of her. ‘Sara suddenly felt a bit unsure about the relationship. They were spending more time apart, and our little group wasn’t together so often. Then I split up with the other boy, and after that Sara didn’t want to be with hers, either.’

  Maria took a breath.

  ‘He made a bit of a fuss at first, Sara’s boyfriend. He didn’t want it to be over. Kept ringing her and wouldn’t give up. But he found a new girl not long after, and then he left Sara in peace. It was only a few weeks before we finished college, and Sara had already booked us on the writing course in Umeå. There were so many things I was looking forward to. College-leaving celebrations, the writing course, starting at university.’

  Maria bit her lip.

  ‘But there was something worrying Sara,’ she said softly. ‘At first I thought it must be because that boy wouldn’t leave her alone, but then he backed off. And then I thought she must have fallen out with her parents again, but it wasn’t that either. I could see there was something, though. And I was terribly hurt that she wouldn’t confide in me.’

  Fredrika made some notes on her pad.

  ‘So you went off to Umeå?’ she prompted quietly, realizing Maria had lapsed into total silence.

  Maria gave a start.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said. ‘We went off to Umeå. Sara kept saying things would be better once she got away. And then she just came out with something on the way: said it was all arranged that she would be staying up there all summer, and we wouldn’t be coming back together. I was really upset; it felt like an insult and a betrayal.’

  ‘You didn’t know she’d applied for a summer job up there?’

  ‘No, I had no idea. Nor did her parents; she rang them a few weeks later to tell them. Made it sound as if it was an opportunity that had just come up, when it wasn’t at all. Sara knew when she left that she’d be there all summer.’

  ‘Did she explain at all?’ Fredrika asked reflectively.

  ‘No,’ Maria said with a shake of the head. ‘She just said it had been a difficult year and she needed to get away. Told me not to take it personally.’

  Maria leant back in her seat and folded her arms on her chest. She looked steely.

  ‘But I couldn’t really get over it,’ she said, sounding almost defiant. ‘We did the course and then I went home by myself. We’d planned to share a flat or something in Uppsala when term started there, but over the summer I decided I’d rather be on my own, in student accommodation. Sara got in quite a state ab
out it and thought I was letting her down, but she let me down first. And then . . .’

  She lapsed into silence. A big red car went past in the road outside. Fredrika’s eyes followed it while she waited for Maria to go on.

  ‘And then everything was sort of fine again,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Not really, not like it had been before. We saw a lot of each other in Uppsala, and we shared the same interests and confided in each other to some extent, but . . . no, it was never like before.’

  Fredrika felt a strange, gnawing feeling inside her. How many people had she grown apart from over the years? Did she grieve over it the way Maria seemed to regret the loss of Sara?

  ‘Let’s just go back to the time in Umeå,’ Fredrika said briskly.

  Maria blinked.

  ‘How were things there? Did anything particular happen?’

  ‘Things were . . . Well, fine, I think. We stayed at a course centre and got to know some people.’

  ‘Anyone you’re still in touch with?’

  ‘No, no, no one at all. It felt like drawing a line under it all when I came home. The course was over and I was going to work for the rest of the summer. Work, and then move to Uppsala.’

  ‘And Sara? Did she have anything to say for herself when she got back?’

  Maria knitted her brow.

  ‘No, scarcely a thing.’

  ‘Was there anyone else she was as close to as she was to you?’

  ‘No, I’m sure there wasn’t. She had friends, of course, but no one that close. It felt to me as if there were lots of things she just wanted to put behind her when we moved to Uppsala. Before she met Gabriel, then she was pretty much on her own again, I suppose.’

  Fredrika snapped this up at once.

  ‘Were you seeing much of Sara when she met Gabriel?’

  ‘Yes, we seemed to be starting to find each other again properly just about then. It was a few years since the Umeå thing, and we were soon going to be taking our exams and looking for jobs. We were on the brink of a new phase in our lives, a more adult one. But then Sara met Gabriel and everything changed again. He took over her life completely. At first I tried to stay in touch to . . .’